


Afford True Knowledge

by Lanerose



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Don't copy to another site, Dungeons & Dragons Game Mechanics, Empire Siblings - Freeform, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Spoilers to Episode 89
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:40:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22023472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lanerose/pseuds/Lanerose
Summary: Beauregard and Caleb have a lot to learn from each other.
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett & Caleb Widogast
Comments: 3
Kudos: 62
Collections: Critmas Exchange 2019





	Afford True Knowledge

**Author's Note:**

  * For [indefensibleselfindulgence](https://archiveofourown.org/users/indefensibleselfindulgence/gifts).



> Happy Critmas! Thank you for the wonderful prompt. Hope that this gets your year off to a great start!

Being back in the Xhorhaus was weird. Not really having anything to do was even weirder. But with the Bright Queen mulling over her demands to the Empire, Essek off dealing with the dens and trying to persuade them that peace with the Dwendalian Empire was in their best interests, and orders from both sides of the war to stay close so that Jes and the Nein could act as messengers, there really wasn’t much else to do but wait. Beau hated waiting.

“Ah, Beauregard!” Caleb said as he poked his head out of the study and into the training room. Beau dropped her stance and turned to him. He tilted his head back towards the study slightly. “Could you assist me for a moment?”

Beau shrugged. “I guess? But you know I don’t know much about magic, right?”

“Oh yes, I am aware.” Caleb gave a soft laugh. He stepped aside to let Beau pass through the door. “No knowledge of magic required to assist, I will be doing all the magic.”

“Cool.” Beau replied. She turned around as Caleb shut the door behind them. “Are you working on a new spell or something?”

“Eh, something like that.” He gestured toward the center of the room, where a space had been cleared. “Stand just there, in the center of the circle, if you would, please?”

Beau wandered into the circle. There were no glyphs marked on it, as there were when Caleb transported them using circles, whether drawn by him or the permanent ones at the Cobalt Soul or the Bright Queen’s palace. She turned around. “So, what do you need me to – ?“

“One moment, please,” Caleb said, holding up a finger. He started muttering beneath his breath in a way that Beau had come to associate with his spell casting, his hands moving in an odd counterclockwise manner that reminded her of a form Dairon had used once. Beau waited, and eventually Caleb vanished.

“Ah, thank you Beauregard – “

“AH!” Beau screamed, turning around and nearly throwing a punch at Caleb, now standing in front of the door to his chamber. “What are you doing over there? Can you do that thing that Essek does now?”

“Ah, no,” Caleb said, hands raised defensively in front of him, “I am not so talented as that. It is merely something that I am working on. But this was very helpful, thank you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. If there is anything that I can do - ”

“Actually, Caleb, about that – “ Beau interrupted. She stopped, uncertain.

“Yes?” Caleb said.

Beau looked deliberately past Caleb before continuing. “So, I’ve been tryin’ to learn more language and stuff – “

“Yes, I had noticed that you recently completed your study of undercommon.” Caleb smiled. “Congratulations on the accomplishment, it is a – uh – a tricky language, I have heard.”

“Right.” Beau paused again. This was stupid. This was really stupid. Except maybe it wasn’t. “So, there’s this thing I’ve been thinking of doing with ki that I think might work, and I was thinking about how to do it and – well, is there anyway that you could cast that spell you use to understand what other people are saying on me?”

“Ah, no,” Caleb said, shaking his head regretfully, “unfortunately it is a spell that can only be used on one’s own self.”

Beau pursed her lips, then shrugged, affecting nonchalance. “Oh. Okay.”

Caleb looked at her quietly for a moment. Then he said slowly, “I could try to develop a version of it that would let me do so, but it might take some time.”

“Nah, man, I don’t want you to go to all that trouble – “

“It would not be that much – “

“Yes it would, there’s no need to go that far – “

“Still, I do not think – “

“No, seriously! Thank you, but that’s way too much, unless you’d be able to teach me to cast it, too, and I don’t want to learn any of your wizard shit. I just wanted to see if I could get a feel for it and do something similar with my monk shit.”

Caleb paused.

“If it would be helpful,” Caleb said after a moment, “I could – uh – cast the spell as a ritual so that you could see how the magic – uh – how the magic works?”

“No, I don’t know how – or wait. Actually. Actually, yeah, could you do that?”

Caleb’s face squinched. “Yes, Beauregard, I have just said that I am able and willing to do so if it would be helpful to you. Why would you - ?”

“Great, great!” Beau interrupted. “Let’s do that.”

Caleb sighed, but started setting up to cast.

“Cool.” Beau said when the spell was complete. She tilted her head. “Can you do it again?”

“The spell lasts for one hour without concentration, so I am uncertain that casting it again immediately would have any impact. But I could cast it again in fifty-nine minutes and ten seconds. Nine. Eight.”

“Yeah, you don’t have to count them down like that,” Beau said. “We could… talk about something else for that hour?”

Caleb’s head drew back consideringly. “What would you suggest?”

“Well,” Beau said, “we did just leave a place full of a bunch of assholes who treated you like shit a decade or so ago. Anything you want to say about that?”

“Beauregard.” Caleb stopped. “I think perhaps that is a topic for another time. If I may suggest, I have heard from Nott, although she perhaps strictly speaking should not have told me, that you might wish to say something that perhaps relates to a certain blue tiefling of our mutual acquaintance.”

“Why that little – “ Beau was across the room and opening the door before she even thought about moving. She paused in the door and said, over her shoulder and without looking back, “so I’ve got to go kill a goblin, but if you change your mind, you should let me know.”

“Ja, I will do that.” Caleb replied. Beau suspected he wouldn’t but that wasn’t the point, yet. “You should feel free to do likewise.”

Beau laughed. She glanced over her shoulder. “Anyway, I’ll be back in an hour. And Caleb?”

“Yes?”

“Thanks.”

If he replied, she was gone to swiftly to hear.

**Author's Note:**

> “True friendship can afford true knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance.” – Henry David Thoreau
> 
> I love the way that the players (Liam especially, but Marisha too with meditation leading to Stillness of Mind) work in time learning skills before they gain them as they advance in level, so this fic is a giant nod of appreciation to that. 
> 
> In case anyone’s curious, the spell Caleb is working on is not teleportation, but something of his own creation, and yes, something happened that the audience did not see because this is from Beau’s perspective and she didn’t catch it. 
> 
> Beau, on the other hand, is working on what will at monk level 13 be the Tongue of the Sun and Moon skill, which lets monks use ki to touch the minds of others and both universally understand and be understood, without needing to know any language in particular. As Matt Mercer himself pointed out, this is slightly different from knowing all languages (because the character can’t read or write, only speak the language and be understood) or the comprehend language spell (which allows someone to hear and read but not to communicate). Anyway, I think it'll be interesting to see how Beau uses it.


End file.
